tight-knit
by scribblingnellie
Summary: 'Dad, tell me about my mother.' It was a question he had expected, and had prepared for. As much as he could prepare for telling his daughter about the woman who had lied to him. John Watson finally must face what he's hidden away from himself for thirteen years. Many thanks for reading.


'Dad, tell me about my mother.'

It was a question he had expected, and had prepared for. As much as he could prepare for telling his daughter about the woman who had lied to him and abandoned her.

But it still gave him a shock. Relaxing on the sofa, empty pizza box in front of them, From Russia With Love on the DVD, it was father and daughter night in. Hannah's love of James Bond was Sherlock's fault - his idea of babysitting was to watch his entire (secret) Bond collection with her, pointing out all the flaws and impossibilities.

John had wondered why she'd never asked about her mother. But he felt it too deeply to bring up the subject himself. He was sure his friends mentioned her now and then, though probably not much detail. They understood his reluctance.

'I feel a bit on the outside sometimes with my friends. I mean, Lucy has Molly and Greg...'

'What happened to calling them Uncle Greg and Aunt Molly?'

'Dad, I stopped calling them that when I was nine.'

'Oh.'

Well, she was a bright kid, older than her years, and quite assured. That might have been partly Sherlock's fault as well.

'I mean, not that it bothers me that I don't have a mum around, plenty of kids don't have both parents. Joanne at school has neither, she lives with her grandparents. I just.. I suppose I'd just like to know about her. You don't talk about her, dad. Why not?'

John hesitated. He never talked about her anymore. Thirteen years since she left them. One day she was there, helping two year old Hannah to climb the stairs, smiling down at her daughter. The next day she was gone, a neat, short note left on the kitchen table. Sherlock couldn't work out what happened. Nor could Mycroft find any trace of her, though how much of the truth he was telling, John had his doubts.

Hannah seemed to have accepted from a young age that her mother had left. It had worried John a lot that she seemed uninterested, unaffected by it. Sherlock tried to reassure him that it was quite normal, he'd been reading up on the subject.

And though she may have no mother around, she did have a wonderful extended family, if an unusual one, who were always there for her. Mrs Hudson, having fallen one too many times in Baker Street on her own, had come to live with them, to help with and fuss over Hannah, but mainly for John and his daughter to look after her, even if they didn't tell her that. Sherlock and Hannah had what he could only describe as a connection. The day a ten year old Hannah solved one of their cases by stating the obvious - _it can't have been the nephew because of his feet. I mean, just look at them, he isn't going to be climbing walls with those feet_ - Sherlock took the young Watson to his heart. They were incorrigible and quite brilliant.

'I know she left when I was two. I don't remember her apart from her hands. Not her voice or her face, just her hands. Holding mine as I tried to walk down the stairs.' Her eyes looked sad, but she quickly shook her head, dismissing the memory. 'I know that you two fought when she was pregnant with me and nearly split up.'

'How...?'

'Sherlock told me.'

'You go to Sherlock when you want to find out things about your mother?'

'Oh, Dad.' Her arms reached up and wrapped themselves around his neck. Hugging him, Hannah let go and looked him in the eye. 'No, I don't. You know Sherlock, blurting out random pieces of information.'

'Yeah.'

To be honest, he didn't mind if his friends mentioned stuff about her, or if Hannah asked them. He wasn't exactly forth coming.

'And I know that something happened, something major that none of you will talk about, something that involved Sherlock and Mycroft and you and my mother. Something you all know.'

John moved himself further back into the sofa. Was it time to tell his daughter about her mother? About who she was and what happened?

Looking at her, he was struck by how much like Harry she looked. She had her mother's nose but everything else was pure Watson. That curious, angry look in her eyes when Sherlock was being an arse; the loyal, protective instinct that kicked in when someone tried to pick on Lucy; the intelligent, reasoning mind that sat down with Molly to try and make sense of her biology coursework; the serious concentration as Greg guided her through self defence moves; the patient calmness as she helped Mrs Hudson with the morning pot of tea. She'd even manage to shake up the equilibrium of Mycroft, getting the stony faced British Government to smile as she gave Sherlock one of her sassy putdowns. Her father's daughter. He loved her fiercely, sometimes to the point where it hurt his heart when he watched her being happy and angry, and all things in between.

'Who was she Dad? Why did that make her leave?'

Getting up, he walked across the front room to the sideboard. Opening the drawer he took out the box. He felt Hannah watching him. It was the box that he always kept locked, that she knew was his only. Taking the key from its place in the back of the drawer, he unlocked it.

Memories that had taken on a physical pain. Just to see those things again, after so long, hurt like hell. It wasn't just the anger he had first felt, sitting in the dark, in that cold, dank corridor in Leinster Gardens, listening to Sherlock draw Mary out. Confusion, shock, pain as well. Everything in that box hurt to look at. They were her things, things from her life as Mary Morstan.. as Mary Watson, his wife... when was the last time he had thought of her as that?

On the top was a memory stick. Taking it out, John held it before Hannah. His daughter looked at it, confused.

'This is your mother.' John felt his voice catch, cleared his throat and carried on. 'She gave this to me and Sherlock the day he figured out what she was.'

'What was she?'

John tore his eyes from the cold object in his hand to the round, inquisitive eyes of his daughter. He was falling back into the memories, back into those months that he had tried hard to block out. Returning to the sofa, he sat back down next to her.

'This is what your mother was.. what she probably is right now.' Closing his eyes, John could feel the hurt and the pain grabbing at the corners of his mind and his heart. He'd loved her, totally. 'Has Sherlock told you about when he was shot, after our wedding?'

Hannah nodded. And he saw the realisation cross her face. 'That was my mother?... she shot him?' Sitting quite still next to him, staring at the memory stick, her voice fell into a whisper. 'What was she.'

'It's all on here. She told me when she put it on the table that everything about who she was and what she had done was on there... well, on the original one. This isn't the same one she gave me. I... I made a copy.'

His daughter's eyes, confused, looked into his. 'What happened to the one she gave you?'

'I threw it on the fire. That Christmas when we made up. In front of her, I threw it on the fire.'

And then she asked him. The question that he had hoped he would never have to answer for the hurt and the anger it would bring back.

'Have you looked at it? Have you read what's on there?'

John took his daughter's hand, placing the memory stick into her palm and curling her fingers around it.

'Dad?'

'Yes.'

That had been his lie. To Mary, who had lied to him since that day when he started at the surgery, the day they shared a coffee in the staffroom and she'd asked him out for dinner.

His and Sherlock's lie.

'Do you want me to read it?'

He nodded. Hannah Watson was fifteen years old, some would probably say too young to read the things that the memory stick contained. But John knew his daughter. She was tough, brave, fierce, angry, protective, curious, intelligent and determined. It would hurt her, like it had him. Hurt badly. But she was his daughter. She'd grown up surrounded by amazing adults who'd helped her become the amazing young woman she was. And adults who would be there for as she discovered who her mother really was.

'Will it tell me why she left us?'

'I don't know. But maybe, using it, we can find out. If you want to find out. '

The silence settled between them as Hannah turned the stick over in her hand. John reached forward and picked up his whisky glass. Had he done the right thing? It felt right.

'Sherlock told me you and mum loved each other. '

Folding her legs underneath her, Hannah broke the silence.

'We did... she came into my life at a time when I... when I needed that.' Stumbling over his words, he felt his daughter's hand take his. 'We were happy.'

'And then Sherlock came back. He'd said what happened was all his fault. I didn't know what he meant, he wouldn't say.'

John laughed, short and soft. 'It was a good thing, him coming back. Eventually. But, no, it wasn't his fault. We didn't know what she was, we didn't know how it would turn out.'

'And none of us knew she would leave.' She didn't sound bitter, or upset. Just matter-of-fact.

'Do you miss her, Hannah?'

He turned to her. He'd wondered about it over the years, but had never asked her. Hannah went quiet. What was she thinking? Having surrounded his young motherless daughter with the people he cared about, people he knew would be there for her, for both of them, John had hoped he had done the right thing for her. Hannah had grown into an independent, confident young woman who cared deeply for those close to her; that to him was a sign he'd made the right choices.

'No.' Shaking her head, she looked into his eyes. They were his eyes, his mother's eyes. 'I've never missed her. Because I have you, and Sherlock, and Molly and Greg and Lucy, and Mrs Hudson. Even Mycroft.'

And then his teenage daughter was throwing her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. Taken by surprise, John returned the hug. Wonderful girl.

'Dad, you are the most incredible person I know. You brought me up surrounded by love and wonderful people and I love you.'

There were definitely a few tears, but John would always deny it whenever him and Hannah talked about in later years. No, he hadn't been crying as they sat on the sofa, locked in that hug.

As she let her arms drop, and John placed a kiss on her head, Hannah stared down at the memory stick in her hand.

'Will you read it? For me?' he asked.

Hannah nodded. 'If you want me to.'

'I can't tell you... I'm no good at talking about her, about how she lied to me.'

'But you two got back together, before I was born, you made up and got back together.'

'I did love her. But...' Mary had lied to him, so John lied to Mary. Those words were chosen with care, and with a purpose. 'Trust is so hard for me. For many reasons.'

'You trust me, Dad. You let me go out with Joe, you still let me see him, even though you were worried 'cause he has tattoos and smokes. Oh, unless of course you and Sherlock and Greg and Mycroft checked up on him.. oh I bet you even had us followed. You did, didn't you!' She was half laughing, half furious as she battered him with the cushion. 'Oh, honestly!'

Defending himself against the blows, John found himself smiling and laughing along with her.

'Ok, yes, we checked up on him. He seems like a nice young man. And I trust you. I know that if there was ever anything wrong, you're smart and tough and sensible.'

'Just like you brought me up to be.'

'God, I hope so.'

Pulling his daughter back to him, John held onto her. Hannah was his life, his reason. He kept going because of her and because of the great friends who were there for both of them.

'I'll read it,' she said as she got up from the sofa. 'For you.'

'If it upsets you, you don't have to. There's some pretty shit stuff on there.'

'I think..' She hesitated. Looking down at the memory stick and then back at him. '.. I know it won't upset me 'cause I don't remember her. But to think what she put you through, that will upset me.'

'Hey, I'm ok now, Hannah.'

'I know. We're both ok, aren't we.'

'Yes.'

And it was the truth. Thirteen years was time enough to lessen the hurt and anger he'd felt. And they had each other. Hannah was definitely her father's daughter. With a little of everyone else thrown in. They'd be more than ok.

* * *

**My first go at a John story. The idea for this came to me this morning, though I'm not quite sure from where. Worked on it on and off through the day with a bit of editing, so it's still a little raw. Title taken from a list of creative prompts for June, which I thought summed up their life together, John, his daughter and the rest of the gang!  
****The idea of John not trusting Mary and lying to her at Christmas was inspired by Tumblr post by Deducing Sherlock - link on my tumblr and pinterest story prompts board. A theory which I find a very, very interesting (and plausible) possibility. Many thanks for reading. PS. back to work on the next Falling in Between chapter!****  
**


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